Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir

William Zinsser’s collection of authors speaking about their process of writing memoir comes from a series of their talks at the NYPL and is quite digestible. I’m left with a long list of memoirs to check out in further detail and a dose of bravery to inject myself with to get the words flowing from my own pen. This collection includes inspiration from Toni Morrison, Annie Dillard, Jill Ker Conway, Eileen Simpson, Frank McCourt, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.

A reminder of that great quote from Annie Dillard, which is in this.

You have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader’s arm, like a drunk, and say, “And then I did this and it was so interesting.”